Alpine Summer

Unfortunately, my alarm clock decided to not work. It's amazing how my electronics often choose to go against my will. Our plan was to get up rather early, pack everything up, walk to the Joyce Tower and visit it when it opened, walk back, check out of the hostel, and DART to the airport. However, with the late awakening, these plans fell through. We basically had to get ready, have breakfast, and check out. We talked to the ticket guy at the DART station about how to get to the airport using the rail; he informed us that you have to take it to Connolly Station, and then use the bus to get to the airport. The next train to Connolly wasn't for another 40 minutes, but that really wasn't enough time to do anything in that area. My next hope was that the buses come often enough that we could walk through a little bit of Temple Bar (( the artsy part of city centre )) before heading straight to the airport. Again, I was thwarted. On Sundays, the buses to the airport only come once every hour, the next one was about 15-20 minutes away, and we would not have been at the airport soon enough waiting another almost hour and a half.

So, we check in and head to our gate (( at the end of the world )) as usual and wait for the plane. They announce that the boarding will begin soon, so we get in a newly-formed line, pretty near the front. As actual boarding begins, the attendants inform us that the line is only for people with handicaps or small children (( seen here as a handicap )). We had to go through the queue, split up into two groups depending on how early you checked in. We were in the first group, but lots of people shoved their way in front of us, so we were actually further back in the line than we would have been if they had just called all the people with handicaps and children to the front of the original line. The woman behind me kept pushing me forward. Then, she was nice and asked (( after seeing my passport )) if it was this bad in the States. I told her about how the lines were worse and how you have to take off your shoes, but at least we have trash cans. I was hoping that after she started talking, she would stop pushing. No such luck. I tried pushing back a little, but she didn't seem to get the point. She kept commenting on how the people getting off the plane before "should know better than to think it'll be 35 degrees here like it was back in Germany." I got a little embarrassed because I was one of those people, but it quickly faded when she wouldn't stop pushing me.

The plane trip was rather uneventful. We got good seats again, and I slept a little bit. It's always a bit strange to fall asleep on a plane that heads over several countries and a few bodies of water -- when you wake up, you're never quite sure what land / water it is you're seeing out the window. When we landed, we found the bus stop to get back to the bahnhof, but it said it didn't run at all on Sunday. However, there was a special bus that comes by every two hours and goes to the bahnhof. So we waited and waited (( again, we just missed it )) and then had to pay 3.50 Euro each just to ride there. One guy had a Baden-Wurttenburg ticket and only had to pay 1 Euro. So we showed the guy our Eurail passes, but he said they wouldn't work. He also got in an argument with one girl about how much luggage she could take on the bus and what she had to put underneath in the compartments. The train rides and walk back to the Universitätspark were as usual. Only I was sad I wasn't still in Ireland.